The Chicago Auto Show is less a trade event for showcasing new models and more of an industry dumping ground for special editions and appearance packages. Toyota is already bringing one of those to the party with the Land Cruiser Heritage Edition, but that’s not all it plans to unload from its trailer.

With the event just hours away, Toyota felt compelled to issue a last-minute teaser of an unidentified TRD Pro model. However, we’re disinclined to believe it’s destined for the updated Tacoma display.

First of all, Toyota chooses to describe the mystery vehicle as “a new TRD Pro off-road beast.” Unless the manufacturer’s marketing team is playing fast and loose with its terminology, “new” disqualifies the Tacoma, Tundra, and 4Runner — all of which already have TRD Pro variants.

Since the trim typically denotes body-on-frame vehicles, that leaves us with the ancient Sequoia as the only applicable candidate — unless Toyota throws us a curveball with a second Land Cruiser.

However, there’s a chance the new TRD could be a unibody. While Toyota’s announcement was beyond brief, it did say this new model will lead the charge for a host of updates across the entire TRD Pro lineup. That could be indicative of a change in strategy, with unibody models entering the fold, or simply be an announcement that TRD fans will enjoy a more robust parts catalog or options list next year.

The photograph and accompanying video aren’t much help. Toyota cleverly decided to keep every image of the upcoming TRD Pro cropped so closely that it could be just about anything. Speculate all you can now, as we’ll have our answer by Thursday evening.

Michelin’s LTX-AT2 is actually a highly regarded All terrain tire, the fairly mild looking pattern belies its off road performance. Certainly it wouldn’t do well in mud, but no All terrain really does, including the ubiquitous and gnarlier looking BFG-KO2.

I know the TRD line isn’t exactly much more than GMs Z71 but please don’t water it down with laughable unibody “off-roaders” no ones that dumb to think a unibody minivan is going anywhere offroad. Of course everyone wants to bring up the GC from 20 years ago without mentioning the documented chassis damage those all have with moderate off-road use.